Whether seven Americans make it out of Iran alive is the engine behind all the drama in the political thriller "Argo." If you don't remember how that story concluded back in 1980, I won't spoil it for you here.

But forget about those fleeing yanks for a moment: I almost didn't survive because the suspense just about killed me. Had my hands not been occupied with note-taking, I might have torn out my hair in massive clumps. At one point, I'll confess, I even shouted at the screen - something along the lines of "Answer the !!@# phone, dammit!"

That Ben Affleck can direct a film this good, this smart, this gripping, is no surprise any longer, not after his first fine efforts ("Gone Baby Gone" and "The Town"). That a now-declassified tale from the 1979 Iran hostage crisis should make for such engrossing cinema is no surprise, either. The main source of astonishment is the precision exhibited everywhere, from the slyly vintage look of Rodrigo Prieto's cinematography to the gradual, cinching tension in Chris Terrio's careful screenplay.

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'Argo'

Rated R: for language and some violent images

Running time: 120 minutes

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"Argo" opens with a clever rehash of Iranian history up through the Revolution, the overthrow of the United States-backed Shah and the ascension to power by the Ayatollah Khomeini. It then hops into the story with the events of Nov. 4, 1979, when Iranian throngs, demanding extradition of an ailing Shah from American shores, storm the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and take 52 Americans hostage.

Six escape out the back door, finding refuge in the home of the Canadian ambassador (portrayed, with his usual gravity and grace, by Victor Garber). But how to get them out, skins intact, in the midst of widespread civil unrest and anti-American loathing? Enter Tony Mendez (Affleck, shaggy, bearded and wisely underplaying every scene), a CIA operative who specializes in hush-hush extractions. He cooks up a plan to fly in alone and fly out with the six, all of them posing as a film crew scouting locations for a faux "Star Wars" knock-off titled "Argo."

The craziness of the scheme, and the crappiness of the movie, allow for some amusing Hollywood observations - and a pair of risible supporting turns by Alan Arkin and John Goodman as a producer and effects man, respectively. (Their greeting: "Argo BLEEP yourself.") In this and other ways, Affleck evokes the era without fetishizing it: He gives us the sci-fi glitz, the clunky glasses, the full ashtrays, the butt-ugly hair, but none of these things detract or distract from the essential story. And sometimes, they contribute to it.

Those land lines, for instance. In cinematic terms, no gizmo is better at building suspense than the lone and unanswered telephone, ringing wildly with some unheard urgent message; it's like a ticking bomb, only better, because it telegraphs hope as well as fear. So that hair-pulling climax? Except for some rudimentary computer magic at a critical moment, it's almost entirely analog. With no answering machine, no voice mail, no pager, no email, no Twitter, no texting, no cell, everything comes down to a few frantic phone calls while the clock runs out. It'll kill ya.